Wandelbots raises €6 million to teach robots using smart clothing

Dresden-based Wandelbots, a software company for robotic production, which utilises smart clothing as a way to control robots has just raised €6 million.

The round was led by Paua Ventures and EQT Ventures, with participation from existing investors, including entrepreneur Felix Haas, SAP manager Christian Dahlen, and Atlantic Labs.

Wandelbots was founded in November 2017 by a team from the Technische Universität Dresden, a German university.

The team comprised of Christian Piechnick, Georg Püschel, Maria Piechnick, Sebastian Werner, Jan Falkenberg, Giang Nguyen and Frank Fitzek has so far released an intelligent jacket that allows robots to be controlled, which Volkswagen and Infineon are already using in assembly and logistics.

The Wandelbox, which is Wandelbots’ first product, enables anyone to program industrial robots with smart clothing.

Sensor-attached jackets and gloves track human motion in real-time and transfer this to robotic movement, so non-experts are able to guide robots through a task by example.

The data gathered from multiple examples is used to generate platform-independent automation scripts using Machine Learning.

The startup’s long-term goal is to train robots “20 times faster and ten times cheaper” than with conventional processes. The funding will be used to grow Wandelbot’s team and expand the company’s global presence.